A fourth undersea cable has broken, this one linking Qatar and the UAE. The cause is said to be unknown at this time, but there are reports that it was due to a power breakdown rather than a physical break in the cable. [source]
Meanwhile, the two cables that broke a few days in Egypt may not have been damaged because of ships' anchors, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Transport. [source]
Thanks to commenter David for the tip.
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threefour major undersea cables cut in two separate incidents
internet traffic to Middle East affected
UPDATE: Apparently it is now four cables cut, another one in the Persian Gulf just went snap... that is an amazing coincidence
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PS: Gulf cable cut was due to ship anchor, no need to stress.
Med cut maybe due to common geologic incident like subsea slide
see link for details
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I've been following this fairly closely as it affects my work (I work for a major Canadian data center with clientèle in over 100 countries.) The first break was unfortunate, the second a bad co-incidence considering there were no ships anchored nearby or passing over the cables at the time (as your external link indicates), but by the third break I was beginning to think there is something more than random chance going on here now you say there is a fourth outage (although not a break.) One begins to wonder what is going on here doesn't one. A preamble to breaking external communications among Mideast countries preparatory to invading Iran perhaps?
Wouldn't you want those links open so you could sniff the traffic?
Not really. Doing this would force them to use older technology, satellite and radio both of which are less efficient and easier to sniff. In any case this is either an amazing coincidence or something sinister. If the latter then it remains to be seen what the motive was. I would suspect that if it were the US military the cuts would have happened simultaneously and the invasion would have happened by now.
Much ado about nothing. I'll bet the warranty on the cables expired.